Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Naturalist Emily Stone skis along #wolf tracks

Emily Stone,

Wisconsinoutdoorfun.com contributor

March 8, 2015

(Photo: Adrian Wydeven, Wisconsin DNR)

The
thermometer on my car read negative five when I pulled out of the
driveway, but by the time I'd reached the sunny parking lot at the Rock
Lake Ski Trails, it was up to zero. A brisk wind hurried through the
trees and imparted a sense of urgency to the day – partly because I was
rushing to get skiing before the cold seeped in.

Sunshine. Great
snow. Rollercoaster hills. Weasel tracks quilting the drifts. I veered
right at the first three intersections before finally turning left onto
the 11.5 kilometer loop. Lost in thought, I alternated between thinking
about my to-do list and thinking about technique. Then shapes in the
messy snow along the ski tracks crackled through my subconscious and
brought me zooming back to the present. Big feet … four naily, untrimmed
toes…and lots of them. Suddenly I was skiing alongside the tracks of a
wolf pack.

They were polite wolves, for the most part, and rarely
stepped in the ski tracks. Confined to the narrow strips of smoothly
groomed snow on either side of the trail, the mess of tracks on both
sides of me indicated that there were at least five or six wolves
traveling together. While on the hard-packed trail, they walked
freestyle in their own paths.

In
a couple locations the tracks all left the ski trail in a single file
line. Suddenly several wolves looked like one. To save energy, many
animals will walk with direct registry. That means back feet land in the
tracks of front feet, and members of a line will all step in the same
places. Humans do this, too, especially in deep snow. It's much easier
to walk in someone else's footprints instead of breaking through the
crust with each step on your own unique path.

It is always a thrill to find evidence that you are not alone on the trail. (Photo: Photo by Emily Stone)

In
a few places one wolf did step into the smooth valley of the ski track.
His paws were perfectly imprinted there, undisturbed by any other
skier. I was the first human to glide over them. These tracks were made
just last night. I was going their direction. There were wolves at the
end of these tracks.
Of course, I know that there is nothing to
worry about. Wolf packs surround Cable and inhabit all of the wilds I
play in. Tens of thousands of humans recreate in these woods each year,
and most don't even see a wolf, much less feel threatened by one. Still,
I can't help thinking of Mary Oliver's poem, Bear. "It's not my track, I
say, seeing…the naily untrimmed toes…" and she goes on to describe how
"the distances light up, how the clouds are the most lovely shapes you
have ever seen, how…every leaf on the whole mountain is aflutter."

And
it's true. The tracks grounded me back in the present: in the crisp,
sunny woods; in my rosy cheeks; and the liquid cold that filled my
lungs. When I stopped shushing along to look closer, the sound of the
wind in the trees filled my ears. Creaking and moaning, snapping and
popping, the trees seemed to be composing their own melodramatic poetry
against the bluebird sky. The woods felt alive.

When I lived out
east, and out west, I missed that sense of thrill that comes from
sharing space with the untamed grace of wolves. History says they won't
bother me. But biology says they could. I know that not everyone agrees,
but feel incredibly fortunate to live in a place that is wild enough
for them.

It
wasn't always that way. We killed them off once. A small number hid out
in the remote areas of northern Minnesota -- the only continuous
population of wolves in the lower forty-eight states. They came back to
Wisconsin on their own in the mid-1970s. The Endangered Species Act
allowed their population to grow and thrive enough that they didn't need
that protection any more. They were delisted in January 2012, and we
currently have 600+ wolves in the state. Now in another plot twist, a
federal court has vacated the 2012 decision, which returns wolves in the
Great Lakes Region to the Federal Endangered Species List.

But
all of those political controversies don't really matter on a sunny day
in the woods. Eventually the tracks collected in a narrow trail, loped
off through the underbrush, and didn't return. They left a mark on my
thoughts, though, and when I ran into Sarah Boles, a carnivore tracker
for the Wisconsin DNR, the wolf tracks were the first thing I mentioned.
After a little follow up work with the help of Adrian Wydeven, retired
DNR wolf ecologist, they determined that I probably saw tracks of the
Seeley Hills Pack.

The Seeley Hills Pack originated in 2003, with
wolves that broke away from the Ghost Lake Pack. With 5-6 wolves,
including a radio-collared yearling male, 845M, the pack now lives in my
backyard. According to Adrian, "The Seeley Hills Pack roams an area
from southern Bayfield County near the Sawyer County line, to north
across highway M, portions of the Namakagon River, Pioneer Road, and to
the southern edge of the Porcupine Lake Wilderness Area. The pack roams
from western portions of Lake Namakagon to just a few miles east of
Cable. The Seeley Hills Pack has the northern Birkie trail run right
through its territory."

Adrian went on to hypothesize that "Moves
to the east side of the territory by the pack, including the Rock Lake
area, may have been partly due to all the skiers and lots of people in
the western parts of its territory last weekend." That makes sense to
me. That's exactly why I was skiing at Rock Lake, too! With a love of
wild places, a tolerance of cold, a taste for venison, and aversion of
crowds, I, and the wolves who shared the trail, have quite a bit in
common.

Emily Stone is a Naturalist/Educator at the Cable
Natural History Museum. Visit http://www.cablemuseum.org to learn more
about exhibits and programs at the museum. For more from Emily Stone,
visit her blog at http://cablemuseumnaturalconnections.blogspot.com/.

About the Cable Natural History Museum:

For
over 45 years, the Cable Natural History Museum has served to connect
you to the Northwoods. Come visit us in Cable, WI, at 13470 County
Highway M. The current exhibit, "Deer Camp: A Natural and Cultural
History of White-tailed Deer," opened in May 2013 and will remain open
until April 2014.

The film offers an abbreviated history of the relationship between wolves and people—told from the wolf’s perspective—from a time when they coexisted to an era in which people began to fear and exterminate the wolves.

The return of wolves to the northern Rocky Mountains has been called one of America’s greatest conservation stories. But wolves are facing new attacks by members of Congress who are gunning to remove Endangered Species Act protections before the species has recovered.

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Inescapably, the realization was being borne in upon my preconditioned mind that the centuries-old and universally accepted human concept of wolf character was a palpable lie... From this hour onward, I would go open-minded into the lupine world and learn to see and know the wolves, not for what they were supposed to be, but for what they actually were.

-Farley Mowat, Never Cry Wolf

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“If you look into the eyes of a wild wolf, there is something there more powerful than many humans can accept.” – Suzanne Stone